invasion!

Two deaths in the waters off California and Mexico last week and a spate of shark-inflicted injuries to surfers off Florida’s Atlantic coast have left beachgoers seeking an explanation for a sudden surge in the number of strikes.

In the first four months of this year, there were four fatal shark attacks worldwide, compared with one in the whole of 2007, according to the International Shark Attack File at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville.

A contributory factor to the location of shark attacks could be global warming and rising sea temperatures.

‘You’ll find that some species will begin to appear in places they didn’t in the past with some regularity,’ Dr George Burgess of Florida University said.

Global warming is bringing more warmer-climate creatures to Finland, including moths that feast on human blood, according to nature researchers.

Insect-watchers are spotting more and more calpe moths in the Nordic country, which used to be considered too cold for the insects from southeast Asia, Finnish nature magazine “Suomen Luonto” reported in its June edition.

The journal published what it said were the first pictures showing the moths — calyptra thalictri — sucking human blood. The species was first sighted in Finland in 2000, but more than 100 of them have been counted since then, the journal said.

Scientists recently found bones from a 60-million year old giant snake in Colombia—a snake that weighed a ton, and was as long as a school bus.

Paleontologist Jonathan Bloch of the Florida Museum of Natural History was on the team. He says the find also tells us about climate, because cold-blooded animals depend on ambient heat for their metabolism.

Bloch says it must have been ten degrees hotter in Colombia back then—contrary to a leading theory that tropical climates don’t change as much as others. So today’s warming trend may have an even wider impact than we thought.

Bloch’s team made some other inferences as well. For example, the snake would have been larger than anything else at the time, so it could have easily eaten whatever it liked, including primitive crocodiles!

They also suggest that the extinction of the dinosaurs may have set the stage for this giant snake to become king of the land for millions of years.

They’re called Asian carp, and they emigrated to the lower reaches of the Mississippi River in the 1970s. Now they’re knocking on the door of the Great Lakes, threatening to destroy one of the most valuable aquatic regions in the U.S., unless the often fractious Great Lakes states manage to pull together and keep them out.

The situation is so serious that the White House convened an “Asian carp summit” on Monday to work out a defense plan.

Asian carp — a collection of related fish, including bighead carp and silver carp — are what’s known as an invasive species, an animal or plant that moves into a new environment, often badly disrupting it.

Invasive species are becoming more common because of international trade, which turns the planet into a giant pinball machine, transplanting wildlife from one corner of the world to another, and because of climate change, which prompts species to migrate to more hospitable environments, often at the expense of those that already live there.

If the preventive efforts don’t work, you might want to put on a helmet the next time you go waterskiing on Lake Michigan.

Deadly box jellyfish and other tropical marine species could invade the Hunter’s coastal waters over the next 20 years due to climate change, a CSIRO marine ecologist has predicted. Marine life changes are also likely to have a major impact on commercial fishing and tourism.

Dr Alistair Hobday said CSIRO data showed water temperatures off the Australian east coast had already increased by two degrees over the past 20 years. A similar increase was likely to occur by 2030. As a result, a number of marine species including box jellyfish typically found in warmer Queensland would migrate south.

The waters off the coast of Maine are overflowing with lobsters, which, according to Mother Jones, is actually a bad thing.

Two main factors are causing the lobster population to explode. First, rising sea temperatures brought on by global warming are encouraging the crustaceans to grow quicker and reproduce more often, says Noah Oppenheim, a marine biology graduate student at the University of Maine.

Second, Oppenheim tells Mother Jones, over-fishing has rid the ocean of the lobster’s natural enemies, which include cod, herring, and other fish.

The result is a lot of lobsters that have nothing eat — which is why, as footage taken by Oppenheim shows, they have resorted to cannibalism.The Week, 24 Jul 2013

A deadly “brain-eating” amoeba that lives in freshwater sources may be surviving in more northern areas of the United States thanks to climate change, health experts suggest.

The amoeba normally lives in warmer waters in the southern United States.

But since climate change is generally making summers hotter, the amoeba now seems to be in northern waters, said Dr. Bruce Hirsch, an infectious diseases specialist at North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, N.Y.

Lewis H. Ziska, a research weed ecologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said laboratory and field studies show that poison ivy is advancing with climate change.

“That trend will continue as carbon dioxide levels keep rising from the current average level of about 400 parts per million to 560 ppm or higher in the next 30 to 50 years, with predicted levels reaching 800 ppm by century’s end. Already poison ivy’s growth and potency has doubled since the 1960s, and it could double again once CO2 levels reach the 560 ppm mark,” Mr. Ziska said.

King crabs may soon become high-level predators in Antarctic marine ecosystems where they haven’t played a role in tens of millions of years, according to a new study led by Florida Institute of Technology.

Lead author Richard Aronson, professor and head of Florida Tech’s Department of Biological Sciences, said the rising temperature of the ocean west of the Antarctic Peninsula — one of the most rapidly warming places on the planet — should make it possible for king crab populations to move to the shallow continental shelf from their current deep-sea habitat within the next several decades.

“Because other creatures on the continental shelf have evolved without shell-crushing predators, if the crabs moved in they could radically restructure the ecosystem,” Aronson said.Science Daily, 28 Sep 2015

Giant, killer hornets that fly faster than people run are killing dozens and injuring thousands across China and Japan, and climate change is seen as one of the main culprits for the continuing spread of these invasive species.

Due to the warming temperatures, the population of hornets has only grown as milder winters allow more to survive the season. To make matters worse, they are believed to be spreading across Europe rapidly, leaving hundreds of thousands of dead honeybees in their path.The Progressive, 8 Oct 2013

Tree-eating wood beetles are likely to benefit from a warmer climate and reproduce in ever-increasing numbers. In the first conference to be called on pets and climate change, scientists warned that the small heartworm, that kills dogs, cats and foxes, is already on the rise in the UK with more cases appearing in the north of the country and Scotland because of warmer wetter summers.BBC News 2005

The increase in global climate temperatures has raised concerns about the vampire bat species travelling from Mexico and South and Central America into the southern and central regions of Texas.

Carin Peterson, training and outreach coordinator of the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, said even if vampire bats are not making their appearance, Austin’s surrounding caves and popular bat attraction, Congress Avenue Bridge, already have their annual bat species.Climate Progress, 27/3/12

A report by the Expert Group on Climate Change on Health predicts that by 2080, much of the south of the UK would be vulnerable to the milder form of malaria plasmodium vivax for up to four months of the year because of the change in weather conditions.

Mosquitoes will thrive in the higher temperatures, and predicted increases in winter rainfall would provide ideal breeding conditions. Areas with salt-marshes like south-east Kent would be the most vulnerable. Global climate change could mean popular tourist destinations like Turkey could have a higher incidence of a more serious form of malaria.BBC News, 9 Feb 2001

A team led by Daniel Blumstein of the University of California, Los Angeles, have been monitoring the yellow-bellied marmots of Colorado’s Upper East river for over three decades. Blumstein recently realised the population had exploded. “It’s boom time in this region,” he says.

So what caused them to put on weight? Blumstein and Ozgul suspect it was the gradual warming of the region linked to climate change. The warming means spring starts earlier, so marmots come out of hibernation earlier, giving them more time to fatten up before the next winter.New Scientist, 21/7/10

Vegetation around the world is on the move, and climate change is the culprit, according to a new analysis of global vegetation shifts led by a University of California, Berkeley, ecologist in collaboration with researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

In a paper published today in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers present evidence that over the past century, vegetation has been gradually moving toward the poles and up mountain slopes, where temperatures are cooler, as well as toward the equator, where rainfall is greater.

“Approximately one billion people now live in areas that are highly to very highly vulnerable to future vegetation shifts,” said Gonzalez. “Ecosystems provide important services to people, so we must reduce the emissions that cause climate change, then adapt to major changes that might occur.”News Center, Berkeley University, 4/6/10

Scientists have posted jellyfish spotters on Irish Sea ferries to study a breed with a painful sting which could swarm along the Welsh coastline. This was the first major infestation of the mauve stingers affecting British waters and scientists suspect that global warming is probably the principle cause.BBC News, 18/1/08

But could those more-dangerous kissing bug species move north as the climate warms? (members of Reduviid family of insects — the so-called kissing bugs because of their habit of biting people around the mouth while they sleep)

“Absolutely,” says Patricia Dorn, an expert on Chagas disease at Loyola University. “We know the bugs are already across the bottom two-thirds of the U.S., so the bugs are here, the parasites are here. Very likely with climate change they will shift further north and the range of some species will extend,” she says.University of Vermont, 14/3/12

In the past few years man and tiger have been confronting each other more and more in the Sunderbans, and for once, it seems that tigers are getting the upper hand. Climate change is a reality in the Sunderbans. Rising sea levels, constant erosion and increasingly salty waters make life in the tangle of islands and mangrove forests harder for animals.The Guardian, 25 September 2008

A number of southern Europe’s heron species have suddenly arrived in Britain, in an exotic influx which is exciting birdwatchers.

Mark Grantham, a migration expert at the British Trust for Ornithology thought an anticyclone over southern Europe may have influenced the arrival by pushing birds migrating from Africa too far north, but Britain’s milder weather, perhaps influenced by climate change, was probably another factor. The Independent, 6/6/07

But animals aren’t the only threat to the Antarctic ecosystem. Scientists fear that if global warming causes the continent’s climate to thaw out, introduced plant species could take over. One species of grass, agrostis stolonifera, is a particular threat.

Dana Bergstrom, part of the Australian Antarctic Division and head of a research project on alien species in Antarctica, said: “It’s a species that gets everywhere, it’s already on most of the Antarctic islands.” She said that if the species gets a toehold on the continent “it would just create lawns.”

Another reason to worry about global warming: more and itchier poison ivy. The noxious vine grows faster and bigger as carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere rise, researchers report Monday. And a CO2-driven vine also produces more of its rash-causing chemical, urushiol, conclude experiments conducted in a forest at Duke University where scientists increased carbon-dioxide levels to those expected in 2050.NBC News, 30/5/06

As climate change warms the nation, giant Burmese pythons could colonize one-third of the USA, from San Francisco across the Southwest, Texas and the South and up north along the Virginia coast, according to U.S. Geological Survey maps released Wednesday.www.usatoday.com, 20 Feb 2008

A stingray that kills its prey with a giant electric shock has been found off the coast of Britain, it emerged today. Now experts fear shoals of marbled stingray – a relative of the fish that killed Australian crocodile hunter Steve Irwin – will invade Britain this summer due to global warming.www.mailonsunday.co.uk, 19 Jun 2008

Hundreds of native British animals and plants are being put at risk from an invasion of foreign species that thrive here because of rising global temperatures, the Government said yesterday. The problem is expected to become worse as warmer temperatures encourage the migration of hostile species, which include floating pennywort, American mink and the Chinese mitten crab.www.telegraph.co.uk/, 28 May 2008

While the jellyfish invasion has helped decimate the winter flounder population in Narragansett Bay, the non-native sea squirt may overrun the local oyster and blue mussel communities. ”There is evidence of jellyfish explosions around the world that appear related to the adverse impact of human activities, and those include global warming,” said a representative of the New York City-based Natural Resources Defence Council. The Boston Globe, 2/7/02.

Britain’s gardens have been invaded by record numbers of slugs because the wet weather has helped them double their population. Dr Richard Meredith of Bayer Crop Science, has been monitoring slug numbers for years. Normally, frosty winters and dry summers keep the slug population down. But global warming has helped provide perfect conditions for them to thrive.www.telegraph.co.uk, 22 Aug 2007

Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is to blame, according to one pet adoption group, Pets Across America. The cause of this feline flood is an extended cat breeding season thanks to the world’s warming temperatures, according to the group.www.livescience.com, 6 Jun 2007

Experts working for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) have identified 9 alien species on the verge of invading Britain. The experts are most concerned about is the Asian tiger mosquito which is larger than most – up to 1cm long – and bites in the day, rather than just in the evening.www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/, 7 Jun 2009

“In the long run, every species will be affected,” said a conservation biologist with the World Conservation Union. “A few will benefit, chiefly those that breed quickly, already exist in varied climates and are able to adapt swiftly to changing conditions, scientists said. Think cockroaches, pigeons and weeds.”www.ktvu.com, 5 Dec 2007

The Humboldt squid, which can grow up to 7 feet long, has moved up the California coast as ocean waters warmed. “It’s the latest in a long series of bad news for fishermen,” said a Stanford University researcher, adding that squid have been found as far north as Alaska in the past five years.www.ktvu.com, 5 Dec 2007

Giant oyster specimens have been found on Germany’s North Sea island of Sylt. Marine biologists are unanimous in their explanation for the causes of the Pacific oyster invasion.

“Cold winters can bring the spread of wild oysters to a halt, but warm winters enable the oyster larvae to flourish,” said a marine biologist with Sylt’s Alfred-Wegener Polar and Marine Research Institute. “Their increase is a direct result of global warming.”www.independent.co.uk, 8 Mar 2008

Aided by warmer weather and the easy pickings of drought-stricken trees, beetles are ravaging Yellowstone’s pines. “Climate change is going to be the most significant challenge to the fundamental premise and foundational management of our national parks that we have ever faced,” said the newly installed park service Director.L.A.Times, 6 Dec 2009

Unique marine life in Antarctica will be at risk from an invasion of sharks, crabs and other predators if global warming continues, scientists warn. Crabs are poised to return to the Antarctic shallows, threatening creatures such as giant sea spiders and floppy ribbon worms, says a UK-US team. Shrimp, ribbon worms and brittle stars are likely to be the most vulnerable to population declines.news.bbc.co.uk, 16 Feb 2008

Six species of fungi have been found in Scotland for the first time, providing yet more evidence of the general warming of the British climate. The former head of mycology at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh said, “Changes in our climate are allowing some fungi to possibly jump hosts, and these more parasitic fungi could pose quite serious implications for species that have always existed up here and not been under attack.”www.scotsman.com, 20 Oct 2004

Climate change could be causing cougar attacks: Alberta’s cougar population has jumped this year because recent warm winters have pushed up the population of deer, elk and moose — the cougars’ natural prey, said Darcy Whiteside with Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.www.canada.com/nationalpost/news 29 Aug 2007

Higher average temperatures and changes in rain and snow patterns will enable some invasive plant species to move into new areas. Insect pest infestations will be more severe as pests such as mountain pine beetle are able to take advantage of drought-weakened plants. Pathogens and their hosts that thrive in higher temperatures will spread to new areas.National Wildlife Federation website, 2014

The damselfly, a flying matchstick of bright blue and black, is the latest of a number of new arrivals from Europe which are thought to have been brought to Britain by rising temperatures caused by climate change, according to The British Dragonfly Society.www.independent.co.uk, 22 July 2010

Global warming is raising the risk for infection with so-called “airport malaria” in malaria-free zones of the United States and Europe, researchers warn.
Here’s how it happens, as the scientists explain it: Mosquitoes make their way on to planes in tropical regions, and at the end of a flight can escape into the increasingly warmer climates of developed countries, where they now have a better chance of surviving and proliferating said the study author and program director of environmental and occupational health at Louisiana State University in New Orleans.health.usnews.com, 12 Dec 2008